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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

People trying to make you vegan

57 replies

Home77 · 07/02/2019 17:42

I read my city is apparently where the most Vegan people live, recently.
And it has been Veganuary as well.

Getting a bit fed up of people pressuring me to be Vegan too though. Fair enough the posters and choice of foods on shelves etc, but just last week SIL gave me a Vegan cook book and went on about how I should try being Vegan as it has helped her etc (but I worry as she has an eating disorder it might trigger that)

Even in Lush today was simply buying my Ultrabland cream, and got this pushy Vegan sales girl telling me 'if I want a vegan one' to try this other one as it doesn't have honey in it. Argh, now they try to make you feel guilty about using honey!

At least it may settle down now I suppose after the Veganuary thing.

Is it just me or have others been bothered by this too?

OP posts:
Walkingdeadfangirl · 07/02/2019 20:21

Funny how people never complain when you order food a a restaurant and are asked "would you like chicken with that".

But if you are offered the option without meat, people get offended. Go figure.

Armadillostoes · 07/02/2019 20:28

I completely agree with Walkingdead-I am veggie and never feel affronted by being offered meat. Also I am grateful to live in a country with freedom of expression, people are free to promote or campaign for whatever they like, and everyone else is free to be convinced or otherwise. If you don't want to be vegan it is easy enough not to be, what is the problem with other advocating it?

Ifangyow · 07/02/2019 20:36

Anyone who tries to convert me will end up with my steak knife sticking out of them.
Nothing gets between me and my meat.

donquixotedelamancha · 07/02/2019 20:59

Funny how people never complain when you order food a a restaurant and are asked "would you like chicken with that". But if you are offered the option without meat, people get offended. Go figure.

I'd be surprised if anyone was actually offended by being offered a vegan option. I think people get annoyed when sales assistants try to push a particular option or when someone claims their lifestyle choice is objectively morally superior to someone else's.

Some people have an ethical preference against eating animal products but many more people have an, equally valid, ethical preference for eating meat- so it's not surprising that meat eating is common presumption.

Most people just get on with what suits them.

TheOtherMrsDeWinter · 07/02/2019 21:31

For each one person out there mentioning the vegan option there are inchomprehensible number of other people who bring up veganism in order to say their arguments against veganism to their vegan colleagues/friends/family then they end the conversation by saying something along the lines of “you’re always talking about veganism” even though they brought it up! Vegan Sidekick has made some funny comics about it.

This has happened to me more times than I can count.

I have come to the conclusion that people who want to share an opinion often do just that, regardless of wether you want to hear it or not. Because this is a heated topic it stays with you and becomes tiresome whichever side you’re on when it happens repeatedly.

Remember op, no one can force you to do anything so it might feel like pressure but it’s still up to you in the end.

bringbackfonzi · 07/02/2019 21:43

*donquixote" How can you have an 'ethical preference' for eating meat? I don't really understand what you mean.

Walkingdeadfangirl · 07/02/2019 21:46

I think people get annoyed when sales assistants try to push a particular option
You mean the specials board, where waiters push offer you a meat or fish dish of the day? Why would you be annoyed if a waiter pushed offered you the lovely vegan special of the day?

TildaTurnip · 07/02/2019 21:48

Perhaps if people were less holier than thou when it comes to things like this people would listen

I don’t accept this. Your moral compass shouldn’t be swayed by someone else’s beliefs. Such a weak argument.

Also such a cliche that vegans go around acting like that. Far more people claiming they do than actually those that do. Hmm

donquixotedelamancha · 07/02/2019 22:01

How can you have an 'ethical preference' for eating meat? I don't really understand what you mean.

Not sure how to explain. I make a conscious moral choice not to go a day without eating mammal or bird, but I would not push my views on others.

Also such a cliche that vegans go around acting like that. Far more people claiming they do than actually those that do. hmm

Obviously most veggies and vegans are not dicks about it, but it's a bit silly to think people make this up. It should be fairly clear why the pushy arseholes stick out more.

Original poster
Home77 · 08/02/2019 09:14

I think, it is different if you ask about something. Like if they asked How can I help you and you say, Oh, I am interested in vegan options, do you have any? That is fine. It's giving you opinions when you aren't even asking. I also feel there is a quite a lot of self improvement stuff about just now and the whole being 'better' thing annoys me, and I think it makes people feel guilty and not 'enough' and maybe that is what grates. (but then I even got a diary of being 'better every day' as well for Christmas. I don't to always want to be trying to be better, just accepting how you are is OK.

OP posts:
PinkGin24 · 08/02/2019 09:22

It is just a fad it won't last. I have nothing against it but it makes me laugh when i see all these new ranges of vegetarian and vegan meals etc from Waitrose and M&S that are MORE expensive than meat and fish options. Or on restaurant menus where the vegan option is more expensive than steak.

I live in Kent and work in London. In both the Waitrose and M&S there at the end of the day they are always whacking the reduced stickers on the vehan stuff. Guess they can't shift it at that price.

Parthenope · 08/02/2019 09:27

The pushy vegan is about as much a myth as the preachy vegetarian. People get terribly defensive sitting next to someone who has made different dietary choices, as though the fact of the other person's existence is some kind of aggressive challenge.

OnTheHop · 08/02/2019 09:30

That sliced vegetarian fake meat in M&S looks revolting,

Chick peas, spinach, felafels, etc: great!
Fake meat that looks like cadaver labia: bleugh.

I eat a very plant based diet, but am Hmm about the air miles and environmental impact if some popular vegan staples.

bringbackfonzi · 08/02/2019 09:31

donquixote I'm still not getting it. Why is it a 'moral choice' to eat meat every day? It might be a taste choice or a nutrition choice or something, but where is the active moral good in eating meat?

OnTheHop · 08/02/2019 09:34

‘Moral choice’ simply means a choice taking in moral considerations.

Like ‘economic choice’

It doesn’t mean making a choice that YOU consider to be morally admirable or agree with.

GirlRaisedInTheSouth · 08/02/2019 09:37

People also make you feel guilty for eating meat now.

So you bloody should feel guilty! A poor defenseless creature lived a miserable life ending in a horrible death so you could eat it. You SHOULD feel guilty.

Threewheeler1 · 08/02/2019 09:44

Home77
Same city and I know what you mean!Grin

BIgBagofJelly · 08/02/2019 09:53

My bil and sil are vegans and constantly have people trying to convert them back to eating meat, despite the fact that they're quiet about being vegans are happy to just eat the side vegetables make no demands on anyone.

UnleashTheBulsara · 08/02/2019 10:00

Like if they asked How can I help you and you say, Oh, I am interested in vegan options, do you have any? That is fine. It's giving you opinions when you aren't even asking.

Maybe as a salesperson she's trying to make you aware of new lines that she's been told to push? So it isn't just the new vegan option, it'll be the next big thing next time. Like when they try to get rid of goods by the till that have been reduced...

TheInnerVoice · 08/02/2019 10:16

It’s like anything that people discover and suddenly believe is the best thing ever. Religion/yoga/meditation/veganism people evangelise about it until it becomes their way of life rather than what they want to do or feel they want to do for instance.

People who have been vegan all their lives tend not to push their views on others because they haven’t just discovered those views. In the same way that someone who has just become a born again Christian is likely to preach to those around them that they too should find god and give their heart to them.

My personal view is that any diet which requires you to take supplements is not a healthy diet. But I would only feel the need to point that out if someone tried to moralise to me about eating meat.

Truth is that we are omnivores. We’re not supposed to be vegetarian but if people want to be that is their prerogative.

I feel no guilt for eating meat because I am naturally a meat eater. I source free range where possible, but the rest is my prerogative as veganism is someone else’s.

But personally I don’t even think it’s a discussion point unless you’re going to a restaurant and one of you is vegan and thus needs to know whether vegan options are available. I don’t care what you eat any more than I care to justify what I eat, much the same as religion. Worship who or whatever you want, just don’t tell me about it then I won’t need to tell you that I don’t believe a word of it.

That way everyone can co exist.

Personally I have far more of an issue with product packaging (of any kind) than other people’s dietary choices.

bringbackfonzi · 08/02/2019 10:21

Onthehop I'm not saying I have to agree with the moral choice. Donquixote said above she had an 'ethical preference' for eating meat. I don't understand how it can be an ethical preference. Ethically neutral, maybe, if you don't think animal lives count. But an ethical good to eat meat?!

BarbarianMum · 08/02/2019 10:23

You sound a little sensitive. How are shops having a range of vegan options pressuring you into not eating meat? How does making restaurant customers aware of vegan options differ from letting them know that BBQ ribs are on special that night? Am totally failing to see the problem with a vegan cook book either.

Adversecamber22 · 08/02/2019 10:53

My lovely best friend was a lifelong vegan and I happily catered for her many times and she never pressurised me to be vegan or vegetarian.

If someone I had to have contact with constantly banged on about it I would have a decent adult conversation about how their choice not mine and be a grown up. If they wouldn’t let it drop I would become highly annoyed and become petty about it. I would probably buy a whole Spanish air cured ham and hang it from my kitchen ceiling restaurant style so they would stop visiting.

Limensoda · 08/02/2019 10:56

Well, it's impossible for someone to 'make' another adult a Vegan so ignore it. If you have a friend who insists on lecturing you about it, tell them to stop it or dump them.
It's not difficult.

FaultInMyStars · 08/02/2019 13:15

Lifelong veggie and sometime vegan here - believe me, it's just as tedious for us when people thrust meat in our faces, go on and on about "you must miss bacon" etc etc. They think it's funny - and it happens ALL the time. Yawn.
If the current fashion for veganism gives others some awareness of how dull it is when people pass comment on what you choose to eat, then that's great.
But it's one of the reasons that I don't want to label my own diet as one thing or another.... I eat what I want and it's nobody's business but mine.